Comic Review: Action Comics #1018

Action Comics #1018

DC Comics

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: John Romita Jr

At the end of this issue, there’s a credit page that says, “DC Comics proudly presents Action Comics.”  And I just thought to myself, how?  Bendis’ tenure on Action Comics has had its ups and downs, but this is easily the most confusing arc in the entire run.  In fact, it is representative of many of the problems going on at DC right now.

This arc features Superman fighting against an alliance between new DC addition Leviathan and the Legion of the Doom.  And at this point, it seems like Leviathan is rivaling the Batman Who Laughs for most shoehorned appearances after their recent introduction.  While this story does sound interesting in concept, it’s messier than John Romita Jr.’s pencils.

Once you realize that the Legion of Doom should be fighting the Justice League in Washington D.C. instead of Metropolis right now, things start to fall apart.  There are a thousand different status quo changes going on with Superman and the Justice League right now and Action Comics #1018 doesn’t seem to know about any of them (despite most of them being written by the guy who wrote this issue).  In this issue, Superman fights the Legion of Doom.  But it’s before Lex betrays the Legion of Doom.  But it’s after he revealed his identity to the public (which Lex never addressed in the Justice League book).  But it’s during the battle that should be happening at the Hall of Justice.  But there’s no sigil of doom in the sky.

The existence of this issue raises so many questions, but more importantly, shows the lack of continuity at DC right now.  Like every other one of Bendis’ books, there’s this half-attempt at continuity.  Clearly Bendis is interested in incorporating other stories into his work, I mean that’s why he’s doing this whole Year of the Villain tie-in.  But this issue (and many of his other stories) contradict everything else that’s going on.  The Jor-El debacle, the return of the Crime Syndicate, the rebirth of the Legion, every one of Bendis’ stories tramples over continuity.

But if this story was worth it, maybe all of this nonsense would be excusable.  But it’s not.  In a story about Superman fighting the Legion of Doom, we only get about three or so pages of that in this entire issue.  Most of this issue is dedicated to giving backstory to the Red Cloud, which is particularly confusing considering this is a tie-in arc.

Even though this series started with some interesting ideas, everything has gone off the rails.  Action Comics continues to flounder around with no direction.  John Romita Jr. taking over art for this book is a great metaphor for its current quality.  While some love Romita’s work (as I sometimes do), his pencils here are rushed and uninspired.  For me, this issue is just about the nail in the coffin for this series.  It’s gonna take a Superman to save Action Comics.